The Survivors

Thanks to extensive research, now you can visit the Titanic Museum Attraction to learn the life stories of the ill-fated ship’s survivors.

By Sandy Clark

The water was frigid, the night dark and the ship mortally wounded. Just 712 people out of the 2,208 survived. At the Titanic Museum Attraction in Branson, they have added those survivors’ stories to the exhibits. It has taken two years of work by researchers in every survivor’s home country. Now you can learn what became of the people who made it out of the Titanic wreckage alive.

Their survival frames the sacrifice of those who died as well. That sacrifice is measured in the lives lived, the families and the children who came after. It makes a poignant end to a tour through the Titanic exhibit and a graceful segue to the 100th anniversary of Titanic’s sinking.

Beginning the tour, every visitor is given the name of a passenger. They can look for their passenger’s name throughout the exhibits. In the last rooms, they can learn their passenger’s fate. If your passenger survived, now you can find out what became of them after Titanic. This follows a very touching memorial to those lost. The entire effect is to personalize and humanize the event.

Compared to the more lively tour, you enter a room of almost shrine-like subdued lighting, and a single object is lit at the room’s center. An aging life jacket made of cork and cloth looks thin and frail. It is hopelessly outmatched by the frigid North Atlantic. Two containers of rose petals rest, one at either side of the room. Visitors can carry a rose petal across this room in remembrance, dropping them into a large glass container in memory of the lost passengers and crew. They have been collecting them since last July and will continue until April 2012. The International Ice Patrol will deliver them to the site of the disaster in the North Atlantic for the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.

Crewmember John Abbott says the rose petal memorial is quite touching, and tears

are not uncommon. It becomes a release to follow that with and exhibit of the lives that were lived, to know that life did go on.

Abbott was drawn to the attraction by his interest in the lives of the people aboard the Titanic. Speaking with attraction co-owner Mary Kellogg, it is clear that storytelling is central to the museum. She listens carefully to what people want and the questions they ask. Working about two years out, she crafts additions to the attraction that tell those stories.

The iconic crew member Jaynee, who is seen on Titanic Museum Attraction billboards, is a way to do that. The Titanic dogs Molly and Carter are another way. In this case, it is a dramatic wall filled with 712 stories, all that were made possible through sacrifice.

Titanic Branson
3235 W. 76 Country Blvd.,
Branson, 417-334-9500,
titanicattraction.com
Open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. January through March; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. through summer
Tickets are $20.68 plus tax for adults and $10.77 plus tax for children. Group rates and discounts available.